James (Jim) F. Albaugh (born May 31, 1950) is Executive Vice President of The Boeing Company and President and Chief Executive Officer of the Boeing Commercial Airplanes business unit. He was appointed to lead Boeing Commercial Airplanes on September 1, 2009. He previously served as President and Chief Executive Officer of Boeing's Integrated Defense Systems business unit. In that capacity, Albaugh was responsible for over 70,000 employees and supervised a $30.8 billion budget. Jim Albaugh is one of the defense industry's best paid managers ($1,499,923 in 2005).[1]
Jim Albaugh graduated from Richland High School in Richland, Washington in 1968. He received a bachelor's degree in Mathematics and Physics from Willamette University and a master's in civil engineering from Columbia University. His first assignment at Boeing was at their Richland, Washington operations in 1975. [1]
By 2005, Albaugh addresses at conferences and in lectures the depreciating science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) brain trust of the United States in contrast to the international community. He coined this phenomenon of the United States losing its competitive edge as Intellectual Disarmament.[2] [3]
Albaugh is a recipient of the Howard Hughes Memorial Award from the Southern California Aeronautic Association given "to an aerospace leader whose accomplishments over a long career have contributed significantly to the advancement of aviation or space technology." [2]